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ROBERT BURNS 

T^n Oration 
By ALBERT E. JOAB 




Class 

Book ______ 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






-' s / 



ROBERT BURNS 



Peasant, Poet, Patriot 



AN ORATION, DELIVERED BEFORE THE CALE- 
DONIAN AND ST. ANDREW'S SOCIETIES OF 
TACOMA, WASHINGTON, ON THE ONE 
HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHTH 
ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
POET'S NATIVITY 



BY 



ALBERT E. JOAB 



TACOMA, WASHINGTON 






COPYRIGHT. 1910 

BY ALBERT E. JOAB 

PUBLISHED JANUARY, 1910 



PRESS OF 

ALLEN a LAMBORN PTG. CO 
TACOMA WASH 



Burnt 



GCLA256 




ROBERT BURNS 



A 



S : - 




ALBERT E, JOAB 



oo 

5ttr. Samuel Walker 

mv friend 

wl)ose kind invitation 

prompted tl)e effort 

-A. E. J. 



ROBERT BURNS 



Mr. Chairman, my Scottish friends, and all who 

worship at the sacred shrines 

"Of those immortal dead who live again 

In minds made better by their presence: live 

In pulses stirred to generosity, 

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

Of miserable aims that end with self, 

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 

And with their mild persistence urge men's minds 

To vaster issues," 

I salute you. 

We gather here tonight to wreathe, with 
flowers of thought, of praise, of joy, of truth, 
of gratitude and love, Tacoma's cenotaph of 
Scotia's patriot, peasant bard, immortal Burns. 

To trace, in detail, all his sad and dreary life, 
mid pastoral scenes, in Ayrshire dales, and to 
the very end; to follow him from these, the 
only Eden of his youth, on that ill-fated trip 
to wicked Irvine, where first the tempter 
crossed his path, and, with seductive wiles, and 
honeyed words, and cunning sophistry, poured 
poisonous treason in his ear; to grieve with 
him, as, in his lonely hours, he meditates, an 
exile in a foreign land, for follies he had done, 
and pours from out his aching heart that plain- 
tive, touching, last farewell, "The gloomy night 
is gathering fast ' ' ; quickly to turn from these 
sad thoughts and with him spend the winter 
months of eighty-six and seven, amid those 
scenes of rarest brilliancy, in Scotland's capi- 

nlne 



tol, where her nobility, her sages, her social 
lions and her literati reigned; to go with him 
upon those border, highland tours, in quest of 
lovely scenes and quaint, historic lore ; to view 
the cold indifference and neglect of that same 
aristocratic herd, on his return to Edinburgh; 
to journey thence, with him disconsolate, to El- 
lisland, upon the flowery banks of Nith, and 
tarry with him, in his peasant life again ; to go 
with him upon those melancholy trips as plain 
exciseman, when glittering pearls of thought 
were cast, with reckless prodigality, beneath 
the feet of swine ; to join him in mad Bacchan- 
alian revelry, in wild Dumfries, and learn how 
easy is the way into Avernian depths ; and, 
worst of all, to sit beside him in those last sad 
hours, and mourn his misery, when he laid 
down life's weary load, in manhood's early 
prime, never to take it up again : To do all this 
is not my task tonight. Leave that to his bi- 
ographers. You, from the bonny land of son- 
sie lassies and braw youths, know it by heart. 

'Tis rather mine tonight, in the brief time 
allowed, simply to flash before your mental 
view a portrait of the poet and the man, as he 
appears to me, from journeying with him, 
through those various scenes, a sympathetic 
and admiring friend ; and make brief reference 
to the splendid fruitage of his rich and won- 
drous mind. 

To me, the life of this great, independent, 
lofty, noble, gentle, generous, tender, erring, 
loving soul is one of the darkest, deepest trag- 
edies ever woven of the warp and weft of cruel 
fate. From earliest youth, till he had measured 
scarcely half of life 's brief span, when suddenly 

ten 



his frail and shattered bark, still tempest- 
tossed, put into port, in that "undiscovered 
country from whose bourn no traveler returns," 
his voyage lay through thick and lowering 
clouds, o 'er angry, rough and raging seas, with 
scarce a gleam of sunshine or of hope, to lead 
him on his dark and lonely way. Yet, through 
the environment of this almost impenetrable 
gloom, the scintillations of his marvelous genius 
flashed, at times, in rays of mirth, of wit, of 
wisdom, pathos, and just wrath, reflecting to 
the world the ever-changing rain-bow tints of 
his untutored mind, to glad the hearts of peas- 
ants and of kings, in every age, in every land 
and clime. 

By nativity and education, a peasant of the 
lowliest type, he ever dwelt in closest touch 
with nature's warm and throbbing heart, and 
was her truest and her best interpreter. He 
shone not with a borrowed light, but by that 
fire within — with that resplendent, empyrean 
flame, with which he was abundantly endowed. 
He needed not the vain society of pretentious 
kings, nor all the gaudy trappings of their gay 
and brilliant courts, to aid him in his glorious 
work. He was a king of men himself; aye, one 
of nature's noblest potentates, and had "de- 
rived his patent of nobility directly from Al- 
mighty God"; for he held sway within the 
realm of mind, the only sphere in which to 
reign is truly grand. 

From infancy, his playmates, in his almost 
solitary life, were not the river, ^woodland, 
mountain nymphs, and other mythic sprites, 
mere figments of the fancy, the children of some 
far-off, antique fairy-land and roseate, sunny 
clime, that often were play-fellows of our arti- 

eleven 



ficial bards. But he was ever wont to sport, 
among the green braes of sweet-flowing Afton, 
with bonney lassies, the airy lave-rocks, the 
green-crested lapwings, the plaintive stock- 
doves and the merry mavis, that, with its wild, 
entrancing, piercing woodland notes, thrilled 
his great heart, with ecstasies of joy, 

"Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony." 

The hirpling, little maukin, the gentle sheep, 
the ourie cattle, the timorous mousie, the whistl- 
ing curlew, the gray plover and the joyous 
blackbird were also his dear friends, with 
which he gamboled, mid harebells, foxgloves, 
primroses and the mountain daisies, beneath 
the hoary hawthorne and the wild-brier rose, 
along the flowry banks and braes of bonny 
Doon and Ayr, or by the winding Nith; and 
injury to any one of these, the lowliest children 
of the universe, would give him poignant grief, 
so great was his compassion and his love for 
all of nature's suffering weans. 

These were his friends, these the familiar 
scenes, and these the modest, simple themes of 
which he sang, in notes almost divine. 

He needed not the fine-spun thought of Greek 
philosophy to help him analyze the feelings of 
the human heart and see, with vision clear, the 
many beauties of the earth; the hand of art, 
the master hand of Raphael or of Angelo, to 
help interpret them, with strict fidelity, or 
bring to mind the glorious visions he had once 
beheld. To him the heavens declared the glory 
of God, as to the psalmist, in the elder days, 
and his immortal mind was one vast picture 
gallery, to furnish delectation in his solitary 

twelve 



hours. Upon the spacious walls of his retentive 
memory hung, in all their primal freshness, 
the many splendors of the universe, that he had 
seen in former years. The vaulted dome of hea- 
venly blue, with its greater and lesser lights, 
with its cloud-shifting scenery of filmy, fluffy 
zephyr-lace and gorgeous tapestries; the bright 
auroral lights, and lovely rain-bows, with 
prismatic tints; the flowry, sweetly perfumed 
banks and braes of winding, purling woodland 
streams, and all earth's happy bairns that sang 
and wantoned there ; rich, golden harvest-fields, 
with merry reapers, sheltering from the noon- 
day sun, beneath some grateful shade; autum- 
nal woods, in brilliant mantles clad, of crimson, 
vermeil, brown and gold ; old winter, in his icy, 
ermine garments robed, with bitter, biting 
blasts; the cotters' humble huts, and all their 
many homely cares, with all those hallowed ties 
of filial and parental love, that bound them, 
clustering round each blinkin ingle-low: All 
these were pictures on those walls, in sooth, 
had been transfigured there. 

At matin-time, the glistening dew-drops on 
the vernal flowers, that spread their variegated, 
sweetly perfumed robes o'er bonny braes of 
Doon, stirred pure emotions in his manly breast, 
and unto his ethereal soul were brighter far, 
and far more dear than glittering diadems of 
kings; aye, far 

"Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind, 

Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand, 

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." 

Perplexed by pinching penury, he rejoiced in 
the wealth of his noble parentage and his 

thirteen 



mighty genius. Beset with adversity, he found 
a soothing balm in the pure society of those 
loved ones, around the hearth-stane of his 
homely cot. Consigned to a life of drudgery 
and toil, he sought sweet solace in his heavenly 
gift of poesy. Denied the blessings of an edu- 
cation, he drank deep draughts of all true wis- 
dom, from the primal fountain-source, great 
nature's book, the reservoir of all the verities. 
Slighted by a stupid aristocracy, that found it 
necessary to hedge themselves about with high 
walls and inscribe thereon ' ' exclusive, ' ' in 
order that their insolent presumption might be 
known to their superiors, he sang, in undying 
strains, of liberty, independence, equality, fra- 
ternity, the dignity of labor and the nobility 
of true manhood ; and taught them that 

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that!" 

"Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

'An honest man's the noblest work of God!"' 

Persecuted by ignorant orthodoxy, that has 
ever hated true genius and advancement, he 
lashed and lampooned their miserable dogmas, 
their dwarfing creeds, their canting hypocrisy, 
their disgusting Phariseeism, and their con- 
temptible superstitions, with withering scorn 
and sarcasm; and was exultant in the all-em- 
bracing love of a God that was not repugnant 
to his own magnanimous spirit, the God, not of 
the " old-light church," but of the whole uni- 
verse—a God as high above their god as the 
heavens are above the earth, or as his own lofty 
soul towered above their mean, petty, cringing 
natures. 

Considering his many bitter experiences, 

fourteen 



with the truckling, plebeian herd, on the one 
side, and an ignorant, sneering, insolent aris- 
tocracy, on the other, is it any wonder that he 
sang, in that deeply pathetic dirge, 

"Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn?" 

Is it any wonder that he bought a pocket edi- 
tion of Milton, in order that he might study 
the character of Satan, and see if auld Nickie- 
ben was not really a nobler nature than the 
fiends incarnate he found about him, on all 
sides, in his daily life? 

Concerning his morals much has been said, 
and varying estimates have been put upon 
them, according as his critics have been reas- 
onable, or unreasonable, just or unjust, intelli- 
gent or ignorant, ingenuous or hypocritical. 
By some he has been classed as one of the 
world's great religious teachers. By others he 
has been regarded censoriously. For mine own 
part, having studied his life throughly and 
conscientiously, I am frank to confess that, in 
my opinion, his faults, frailties, errors or sins, 
if you will, were less and far more venial than 
those of the sweet singer of Israel, after whom 
many pious souls have been pleased to name 
their sons, and to teach them to study his 
psalms, as moral and literary models. There 
was certainly no place in the great and loving 
heart of our poet for that blackest treachery, 
to say nothing more, that marred the life of the 
royal psalmist, the second husband of Bath- 
sheba, the mother of Solomon. Judged by his 
writings or by his life, Burns must be rated 
much higher, as a moral teacher, than many we 
find playing in that role. The truth is, his 

fifteen 



faults or errors were due to a lack of will 
power, and not otherwise to the head or heart. 
Of the very best parentage, richly endowed by 
nature with the noblest attributes that ever 
adorned a great soul, with the fine instincts and 
sensibilities of the tenderest woman, with the 
vigorous intellect of the most manly man, with 
the keenest sense of right and wrong, with a 
conscience as delicate as a sensitive plant, with 
the passions common to all humanity, but with- 
out the regal will to rule the little state of man, 
he ever struggled, as did St. Paul, to overcome 
his evil with his nobler nature; "but the good 
he would, that he did not ; but the evil that he 
would not, that he did." 

Let us not forget that humanity is weak and 
prone to err; that genius with frailty often is 
allied ; that it is not what a man does but what 
he would that exalts him; and that those who 
have found the greatest pleasure in throwing 
stones at this great man are those whose guilty 
souls are not without sin, by any means. 

"Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentlier sister woman; 
Tho' they may gang a kennen wrang, 

To step aside is human: 
One point must still be greatly dark, 

The moving why they do it; 
And just as lamely can ye mark 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us: 
He knows each chord, its various tone, 

Each spring, its various bias: 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted." 

sixteen 



Mr. Carlyle, who wrote of Burns so wisely, 
so tenderly and so well, sneered at his manly 
spirit of independence, saying that his boast- 
ed "rock of independence was but an air-castle 
after all, that looked well, at a distance, but 
would screen no one from real wind and wet. ' ' 
What an absurd statement for so great and so 
good a man to make! We might reply that 
Socrates and Jesus and Galileo, and all the 
others, of the world's great heroes and martyrs, 
found no "shelter from the wind and wet" 
either. But we must remember that Mr. Car- 
lyle was neither a martyr nor a political re- 
former; that he also sneered at the French 
revolution, and the "declaration of the rights 
of man," substantially the same as our own 
"declaration of independence"; and we must 
forgive him, on account of his environment, to 
which he preferred quietly to adjust himself, 
rather than to struggle for great and eternal 
principles, against wind and weather. 

Imbued with a spirit of the loftiest patriot- 
ism, the poet's most fervent wish was to do his 
beloved Caledonia some great and lasting good ; 
and he did more to inculcate the true spirit of 
patriotism and to nationalize his country's 
literature, than any one before him, or than 
all his contemporaries together. 

Of his triumphal entrance into Edinburgh, 
in the fall of 1786, what shall we say? What 
can we say, save that it was most unfortunate, 
as was that illfated trip to Irvine, a few years 
before, although for other and different rea- 
sons. It is true it was a bright spot, in his 
otherwise gloomy life, but it was not a health- 
ful light, and its effects upon his independent, 



seventeen 



proud and sensitive nature were most perni- 
cious. Stung to the very heart by the cruel 
insolence, on the part of his Edinburgh Mae- 
cenases, he turned his footsteps to his newly 
leased farm at Ellisland, to divide his time be- 
tween Ceres, the Muses and the grinding, 
debasing drudgery of an exciseman, to which 
last he resigned his gifted nature, as he said, 
only to aid in solving the great problem of 
food, clothing and shelter, for himself, his wife 
and his toddling bairns. To say that from 
this time on, to the time of his sad and un- 
timely demise, a few years later, he was an 
embittered man, is putting it very mildly. 
Haunted with the cursed glamour of those for- 
mer brilliant scenes, galled to a perfect frenzy, 
by the striking contrast between his humble 
lot and that luxurious splendor, in which he 
had seen infinitely baser and meaner souls re- 
veling, without ever having made the one 
hundredth part of the effort that he had made 
for worldly success, he forever chafed, under 
the fardels of his weary life, and wore his 
noble, manly soul away, in his constant and 
foolish fretting, after this vain, contemptible, 
worldly success. He must have felt most keenly 

"This is truth the poet sings; 

That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering 
happier things." 

0, that he might have followed the dictates 
of his own better judgment and his own exalted 
counsels, with which his songs, his poetry and 
his letters are replete; that he might have 
reconciled himself to his own sweet, pastoral 
lot, "far from the madding crowd's ignoble 
strife," cultivating, in sweet contentment, the 
delightful companionship of Ceres and the 
Muses, and growing to that sweet, ripe old 

eighteen 



age, so beautifully described by Cicero, in his 
De Senectute; that he might have said, with 
the exiled Duke, in "As You Like It": 
"Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

It was undoubtedly while meditating this 
sudden and sorrowful change in his fortune 
that he wrote, in "Tarn 0'Shanter, ,, that won- 
derful medley of humor and pathos, wit and 
wisdom, as follows, of the evanescence of pleas- 
ure: 

"But pleasures are like poppies spread: 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 
Or like the snow falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts forever; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 
Evenishing amid the storm." 

Pondering his sad and checkered career, I 
am constrained to exclaim, with feelings of pity 
and of ruth : 

Immortal bard, of Scotias rugged clime, 

Thou bonny flower, of the rural shade, 
Deflour'd and wither'd, ere you reached life's prime, 

And, like the daisy, crushed and lowly laid! 
The little mousie's fate when viewed with thine, 

Was slightest shock, to fiercest pangs compar'd: 
Well might you o'er dear maukin's woes repine, 

Since kindred sorrows you had daily shar'd. 
Corroding passions ruled that lofty soul. 

The biting canker pierc'd thy manly heart: 
While deep potations, from the fatal bowl, 

Benumbed the brain, and flung its gems apart. 
Such is the lot of genius gane agley: 

Such is the wreck of many an ill-starr'd bark: 
Such is the doom of souls, 'neath error's sway; — 

Lost the whole being, lost in hopeless dark! 

nineteen 



The poet's work, like his life, is a mere frag- 
ment, yet what a snlendid fragment. When 
we consider the obstacles and difficulties with 
which he had to contend, the amazing wonder 
is not that he accomplished so little, but that 
he accomplished anything at all, in a literary 
way; that he was ever heard of beyond the 
narrow limits of his humble, rural home, in 
Ayrshire and at Ellisland. In spite of poverty, 
misfortune, drudgery and distress, and the 
want of that education, leisure, culture, refine- 
ment and pleasant environment, so essential 
for the best and fullest play of the poetic tem- 
perament, his splendid genius burst forth at 
times, in poetry and song, of such consummate 
sweetness, elegance, beauty, tenderness, pathos 
and purity, and with such strict fidelity to 
nature, as the world has rarely seen. He sang, 
as the nightingale sings, because he was born 
to sing; for poeta nascitur non fit; and this was 
so, in an eminent degree, of Eobert Burns. 

"His songs gushed from his heart, 

As showers from the clouds of summer, 

Or tears from eyelids start," 

remarkable for their sterling worth, their genial 
humor, their playful pathos, their all-embrac- 
ing love, their universal sympathy, their clear- 
ness and sincerity, their genuine patriotism 
and their manly, heart-felt sentiment. 

"The Cotter's Saturday Night/ ' breathes 
the true spirit of ideal family worship and 
lofty patriotism, while "Scots, wha hae wi' 
Wallace bled," is one of the finest and most 
inspiring war lyrics ever written. 

As an example of the way he gilded the low- 

twenty 



liest themes, with the sunlight of his genius, 
listen to these exquisite lines, 

"TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY." 

"Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, 
Thou's met me in an evil hour; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem: 
To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 

Thou bonie gem. 

Alas! its no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonie lark, companion meet, 
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, 

Wi' spreckl'd breast! 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early humble birth; 
Yet cheerfully* thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce reared above the parent-earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flowrs our gardens yield, 
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield; 
But thou, beneath the random bield 

O' clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie stibble-field, 

Unseen, alane. 

There in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head, 

In humble guise; 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 

And low thou lies! 

Such is the fate of artless maid, 
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! 
By love's simplicity betray'd, 

And guileless trust; 
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

twenty-one 



Such is the fate of simple Bard, 

On Life's rough ocean luckless starr'd! 

Unskilful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 

And whelm him o'er! 

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, 

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n. 

By human pride or cunning driv'n 

To mis'ry's brink; 
Till, w.rench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, 

He, ruin'd, sink! 

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, 
That fate is thine — no distant date; 
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate, 

Full on thy bloom. 
Till crush'd, beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom!" 

The same observations will apply to his 
tender and beautiful verses, and the impressive 
moral drawn therefrom, 

"TO A MOUSE." 

"We, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
Wi' bickering brattle! 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 
Wi' murdering pattle! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion, 

Which makes thee startle, 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion 

An' fellow mortal! 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; 
What then? Poor beastie, thou maun live; 
A daimen icker in a thrave 

'S a sama' request; 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, 

An' never miss't! 

twenty-two 



Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane, 

O' foggage green! 
An' bleak December's win's ensuin, 

Baith snell an' keen! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
Till crash! the cruel coulter past 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee monie a wearie nibble! 
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, 

But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
An' cranreuch cauld! 

"But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain: 
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft agley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy!" 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me! 
The present only toucheth thee: 
But och! I backward cast my e'e, 

On prospects drear! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' fear!" 

Again note the following wholesome moral, 
drawn by the poet, in his characteristic treat- 
ment of that lowliest of lowly themes, which 
none but a true genius would have dared 
essay : 

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us 

To see oursels as ithers see us! 

It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 

An' foolish notion: 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

An' ev'n devotion!" 



twenty-three 



Of all his many charming songs there is 
probably none more deeply pathetic and ten- 
derly touching than these matchless stanzas, 
on 

"THE BANKS O' DOON." 

"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 
And I sae weary fu' o' care! 
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird 
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn! 
Thou minds me o' departed joys, 
Departed never to return. 

Aft hae I rov'd by bonie Doon, 

To see the rose and woodbine twine, 

And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 

And fondly sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu ? d a rose, 

Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree! 

And my fause luver staw my rose — 

But ah! he left the thorn wi' me." 

In conclusion, what important lessons do we 
learn, and what great moral are we to draw 
from the study of this most pathetic tragedy? 

That Almighty God, out of His abundant 
goodness and generosity, again gave to an 
ignorant world His most precious gift to man; 
that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief; that he was despised and rejected 
of men ; that he was treated by the cruel, ignor- 
ant world, as children would treat a most 
precious and costly jewel, of which they know 
not the value ; that he suffered the same igno- 
miny and disgrace that other great and lofty 
souls have suffered; and last and most impor- 
tant of all, that when God gives us a great re- 
ligious teacher, as he has done, one who feasts 
his immortal mind only upon the eternal veri- 

twenty-four 



ties, and gives them to us for our daily food, 
we should appreciate and reverence him, in 
his own day and generation, for his wisdom 
and his goodness, and not wait to cumber his 
tomb with posthumous panegyrics and with 
those flowers of love and affection that would 
be so grateful, during life. 

My Caledonian friends, well may you wor- 
ship at the sacred shrine of your beloved bard. 
The whole world joins in your devotions. In- 
telligent communion with such lofty souls is 
heavenly bliss. 

"Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines, 
Shrines to no code or creed confined, — 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 

Born one hundred and thirty-eight years ago 
today, he will never die; for 

"As long as the heart has passions, 
As long as life has woes"; 

as long as "a thing of beauty is a joy forever"; 
as long as exquisite tenderness, sweetness, 
purity, simplicity and love excite pleasant 
sensations in the human mind; as long as the 
earth's great souls and true genius are rever- 
enced by delighted humanity, so long will his 
lovely poems and his sweet and tender songs 
thrill, with feelings of mingled pathos and of 
joy, with the most pleasant emotions, the heart- 
strings of mankind ; so long will the name and 
the fame of Eobert Burns, old Scotia's un- 
crowned peasant prince, be held in grateful 
memory, by an admiring world. 

twenty-five 



ADDENDA 



Of the many kindly letters at hand, from those 
receiving copies of the first edition of the oration, 
the following scholarly and illuminating criticism, 
together with the answers thereto, is here-with added, 
by permission: 



twenty-seven 



"D!)e 16itlverslt? of Mtlimesota 
Mtinneafolts 

PRESIDENT'S OFFICE 

December 23rd, 1909. 
Albert E. Joab, Esq., 

Tacoma, Washington. 

My Deae Mb. Joab: 

I am very much obliged to you for your kind let- 
ter, of December the 18th, and for the copy of your 
oration on Robert Burns, with your Christmas Greet- 
ings, received yesterday. 

I have read the oration, with much pleasure. 
Parts of it I have read several times. All of it is 
exceedingly good and appropriate to the occasion. 
Pages twelve and thirteen are remarkable. His 
"friends" and the "pictures on the walls" are pre- 
sented with wonderful skill and felicity, and show 
very intimate acquaintance with both Burns and 
Scotland. They are poetical and almost poetry. 
Indeed one can pass from the "glittering diadems of 
kings; aye, far" to "Outshone the wealth of Ormus 
or of Ind," without a consciousness of change of 
style. The poetic accent remains throughout. 

Your peroration is admirable, and your quotations 
exactly the right ones for the occasion. 

There is something in Burns' poetry that tends to 
make his readers poetical in feeling, and, I think, 
in some degree, in expression, so that a man invol- 
untarily, in speaking of Burns, approaches a poetic 
style, much more nearly than he would if he were 
speaking of Charles Darwin or Isaac Newton. 

You have dealt with your subject with a poet's 
appreciation of a poet. I congratulate you most 
heartily. I have heard a good many addresses on 
Robert Burns, but I have never heard one that 
equals yours, in its choice of words and its vivid 
reproduction of the poet's environment and his inner 
life. 

Very truly yours, 

Cyrus Northrop. 
twenty-eight 



Tacoma, Washington, Dec. 28th, 1909. 
Cyrus Northrup, L. L. D., 

President — University of Minnesota, 

Minneapolis, Minn. 
My Dear Doctor Northrop: 

Your very kind and most welcome letter, of the 
23rd instant, complimenting, so graciously, my ora- 
tion on Robert Burns, is just received. As I read 
it, tears involuntarily well from my eyes; — not of 
sorrow and distress, but of gratitude, of love and 
of joy. 

To know that my work has such hearty approval 
of the dear instructor of my youth, whom I always 
esteemed so highly, and reverenced as a Past Master 
in the art of oratory, is, in truth, a supreme pleasure. 

While I have received a number of beautiful gifts, 
this glorious Yule-tide, I have received none so 
precious as this; and I shall always treasure it, as 
one of my dearest possessions. 

I trust that you will feel partially repaid, for 
your labors, of many years ago, " 'Neath the elms of 
dear, old Yale", by the receipt of the little brochure, 
the first-fruits of my mind, which you assisted in 
cultivating, so wisely and so well. And so may you 
feel that your sowing was not entirely in vain; but 
that you cast your bread upon the waters, and this 
little crumb of comfort, among others, has returned, 
after these many years. 

I am deeply delighted to know that you have had 
such a long and such an enviable career, in the edu- 
cational world; and I sincerely hope that you will 
be blessed with many more years, of health and 
happiness, in which to enjoy the rich fruition of your 
life's illustrious labors. 

In conclusion, let me assure you, in the words of 
the great Italian poet, as rendered by our own 
premier poet Laureate, of my dearest, heart-felt 
sentiment: 

" 'Oh, never from the memory of my heart 
Your dear, paternal image shall depart, 
Who. while on earth, ere yet by death surprised. 
Taught me how mortals are immortalized ; 
How grateful am I, for that patient care. 
All my life long, my language shall declare. 
Honor and reverence and the good repute 
That follows faithful service as its fruit. 
Be unto thee, whom living I salute", 

Most cordially and Gratefully, 

Albert E. Joab. 
twenty-nine 



State of VPasl)Uta,tott 

Supreme Court 

Olympia, Washington, Jan. 4th, 1910. 

Col. Albert E. Joab, 

Tacoma, Washington. 
Dear Sir: 

I thank you sincerely, for your courtesy, in send- 
ing me a copy of your oration on Robert Burns. 

Its perusal gave me an hour of unalloyed intel- 
lectual pleasure. It is certainly a literary gem, 
worthy of the pen of any of our very best writers. 
It ought to be read by every one, who can appreciate 
elevated thought, combined with elegance of diction. 

Again, I thank you sincerly, 

R. O. Dunbar. 



Tacoma, Washington, Jan. 6th, 1910. 

Hon. R. O. Dunbar, 

Olympia, Washington. 

My Dear and Venerable Judge Dunbar: 

Please accept my profound gratitude, for the gener- 
ous words of praise you have given my little Christ- 
mas Greeting. It is wonderful how much can be 
said in a few simple words; and your good, honest, 
noble soul shines out, in every line. I appreciate 
it especially coming, as it does, from the dean of our 
Supreme Court, who has graced that exalted position, 
with honor, and dignity, and ability, for so many 
years. 

Most sincerely yours, 

Albert E. Joab. 
thirty 



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